DR ROB ON HAPPINESS

Happiness was never an issue at school, but it was slippery and hard to hang on to. I was talented in sport and learning. However I was an
emotional ‘hot head’ whose outbursts too
frequently got in the way of success. I lost my mother to a heart attack when I
was very young and my father coped with his loss by working long hours. I
didn’t get much parental guidance about how to tolerate frustration and how to
push on in spite of it. I did what came easy and just as easily gave up when it
became hard. I dropped out of school and became what is called in Australia, a
‘surfer bum’.

In hindsight, my choice to return to night school and then study
psychology at University was the beginning of my own search to manage
under-achievement caused by the intensity of negative feelings.

It took me nine years — a four year undergraduate honors degree in
psychology, a two-year master’s degree in clinical psychology, and three years
of researching therapeutic strategies for a doctor of philosophy degree to
reassure myself that the therapeutic approach I intended to specialize in was
the “right” one. I subsequently began, and forty years later retired from, a
career in psychology as a cognitive behavior therapist. Over this time, I saw
many clients, worked as a lecturer in undergraduate and graduate psychology
programs in three universities, and trained hundreds of mental health
professionals in the skills and strategies of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

I am now ready to share with you what I have learned during my career as a clinical psychologist, lecturer and trainer of therapists.

The title of this book says it all. If
this title resonates with you in any way, you are ready for it.